If it works for you, good, but it holds no interest to me, it's not D&D. Note that I would not defend the Great Wheel in any other context than D&D either.
Why ? Look at Brandon Sanderson's books which are really brilliant, this is exactly what heroes do. Again, YMMV and it might not be your cup of tea, but D&D is built around the concept, always has been.
Actually, they have always worked very well for us as transitive planes, the ethereal allowed a lot of shenanigans in dungeons, and the Astral plane, with Githyankis and such was really interesting too.
As mentioned, there are parts of it that were brilliant, and others not so much, again a matter of taste.